Family Photos

1. I don't remember how this came to me, but somehow I ended up with a digital version of a slide my grandpa took in the '70s (maybe from him? maybe from my sister?). The baby isn't named, but the photo is dated October 1975 -- which doesn't make any sense, because my sister, at 14 months, didn't have that much hair and I (although precocious in many ways) would not have been crawling at only two months old. I'm pretty sure the picture is of me in 1976; I don't have many (any?) baby pictures to compare it to, but the crazy hair looks familiar:



2. Everybody says Cuatro looks just like me. I tried to test the theory this afternoon by getting a similar shot of her, but she refused to pose correctly. Still, I got some cute shots. Such as:



3. Or this one (please note the crazy hair):



4. Or this one, in which she is reading Columbia, a Roman Catholic magazine we get because of DH's former membership in the Knights of Columbus (I don't think they know he converted). Is this my kid or what?



5. I was going to round out this post with side-by-side photos of DH as a kid and Dos; that child is 100% his, without a bit of me in her. (Uno and Tres tend more toward my side of the family, I think, but without looking like me in particular.) But the photos DH's aunt gave me when we first got married -- a jackpot of shots of him as an adorable baby and toddler on through his awkwardly skinny teenage years and culminating in the most fabulous '80s prom photo EVER -- aren't where I thought they were and I don't want to hunt them up at this hour. Oh well. That will give me something to show you in a future post. :-)


[Note: I may or may not be able to post in the next few days, so if you don't hear from me before Monday it's not because I'm blazy or forgetful or dead (I hope). It's a good thing I'm not obsessive about goals, because my 5/Day plan is already pretty spotty! :-P]


~RCH~

Wherein I figure out how to embed a YouTube clip (I'm so advanced)

1. That darn baby gave me her cold. *Bachoo!*

2. I can't remember why I didn't write yesterday.... Honestly, I don't really remember yesterday.... All my days run together. :-P

3. Uno is too big for the bicycle she got for Christmas the year before last, which is sad because she only just barely learned to ride without training wheels. It's kind of funny to watch her try -- her knees go nearly up to her ears as she tries to pedal -- but she keeps getting hurt, which is definitely not funny. Poor kid. She needs a new one.

4. I took all the girls to Goodwill this morning, both to look for a larger bike and to get them out of the house (DH worked a night shift and no amount of shushing keeps them quiet enough to let him sleep the day away). Goodwill had no bikes, but we did manage to get a fancy dress for Tres, two pairs of shoes, and a bunch of nice school clothes for the older two (plus a golf visor for Dos, who has always wanted a hat all her life and please, please, Mommy, can it be this one?) for $27.

5. A week from today will be the girls' first full day of school (they get out early on Tuesday, the first day). This is my favorite back-to-school commercial:



So much glitter! And on that note, goodnight. :-)


~RCH~

Eeeeeew.

1. Dos has a loose tooth -- several, actually, but one that's pretty serious about coming out, I guess. She keeps wiggling it at me and threatening to pull it out right in front of me and just now she and Uno came tromping in with a piece of string and asked me to tie it around the tooth so that Uno could yank it out with added force. I kicked them out of the room.

2. I am so creeped out, I can't even tell you. DISGUSTING. Teeth are DISGUSTING. Especially bloody, recently disembodied teeth. ::Shudder::

3. My children know about my aversion (hence all the teasing and taunting). When Uno lost her first tooth, she laughed and said, "Wouldn't it be hilarious if you had to be a tooth fairy?" I screwed up my face in disgust. "Noooooo!" I said. "I could never have that job! Gross!"

4. *** Breaking news! *** The tooth is out. Dos reports that she pulled it the old fashioned way, not with string. Is that any consolation? Nope, still creepy.

5. Voila!



~RCH~

I'm 36 now!

1. Today is my birthday. I told the girls I wanted a clean house and happy children; I'm not sure they believed me.

2. Poor Cuatro is sick. Nothing more nefarious than a summer cold, but the poor thing has a terribly gloopy nose that she won't let me suction or wipe and she can't breathe and eat at the same time. :-(

3. Uno suggested we all have a spa day before school begins next week. I tried to tell her we are not "spa people" (or at least I'm not). Tres tried to convince me of the benefits of a good spa treatment, too ("I saw it on Phineas & Ferm! They made a spa for Candace and she put vegetables on she's eyes to feel better!") but I will hold my ground. I'm sure it would be lovely to be pampered, but I'd feel so ... I don't know, like a poser. I'm just not fancy.

4. DH had to work today so we began my birthday celebration last night with a trip to O'Charley's (with kids) and then to see The Smurf's. Tomorrow we will have the ILs over for ice cream and cake.

5. Today, and for the next few weeks, I am the same age as my awesome sister. I loved growing up so close with her (in all senses of the word close). I'm grateful to be close with all my brothers and sisters, actually (though sadly no longer in the geographical sense). My family is the coolest. :-)

[Secret 6: I was going to post a full 10 tonight since I missed writing anything yesterday, but Cuatro is in my lap crying and squirming and being overall very pitiful, so I won't. Poor little Smooch.]


~RCH~

Completely Random Friday Five

1. Tres keeps asking me, "Mommy, where did you ever find that cute little Daddy?" She doesn't ask DH the same thing in reverse. Maybe she doesn't think I'm such a good catch? I do tend to think I got the better end of the deal.

2. I really like Phineas and Ferb. Also the Backyardigans and (*gasp!*) Yo Gabba Gabba (I thought I'd hate that one when it first came on). Probably in each case it's the music that first drew me in. Oooh, and also the new Electric Company. I think we have the tv on too much around here.

3. I don't understand boutiquey kids' pants with the huge, ruffly bells on the bottoms. They're usually in some crazy mismatched print, too. UGLY. And strangely expensive (I've never seen a pair at Walmart!). Do you know the kind I mean? I thought about linking to an example, but that seemed mean to whatever anonymous child model I might find so I abandoned my Google image search.

4. I wish I could draw / paint. I can make cartoony little pictures of people facing forward, but I have no actual talent for art.

5. In honor of Shark Week and the Girl to Whom I Need to Write Back (and who does know how to draw quite well, among a million other things she does well) -- the rest of you, please forgive the inside reference -- der hammerhead fallt auf dem water. :-D

Random enough for you?


~RCH~

Thursday's Five

1. DH took the older girls fishing this evening, so it's just me and Cuatro at home for a few hours. Ahhh, quiet! How I've missed you!

2. We had a crazy morning that began with Uno dropping a large plastic cup of fruit punch which then bounced off the table and splattered everywhere. Stainy, sticky red drops rained down from the kitchen windows, her chair, the table, pooled all over the floor.... "On the bright side," Uno said, "none of it landed on my scrambled eggs! My breakfast is saved!" Yeah. Lucky. Grrrr.

A couple hours later, we had some poop adventures with Cuatro -- maybe 20% my fault for not putting her diaper on very straight, but 80% her fault for being SO FREAKING WIGGLY that it would be impossible for anyone to put it on correctly. *Sigh!* I spent a good deal of time scrubbing her down, putting her in the bath, cleaning stains out of the carpet, disinfecting the changing table and a handful of toys, and making a collection of poop laundry (she got it on Dos's clothes as well as her own).

The day improved from there, though. I guess it would have to, lol.

3. In related news, my sister helped me pinpoint the way in which Cuatro resembles DH! Everybody says that she's an exact copy of me, not a trace of DH in her. But she is a perpetual motion machine, just like her father. She's always trying to escape her bouncy seat or changing table or my embrace; when she sits, she bounces (high! She could go to the baby Olympics with that bounce!). She moves, moves, moves. DH isn't fidgety, but he's always got to be doing something, some project or bit of work. I told him the conclusion we'd come to, and I think he wasn't sure if I meant it as a compliment or a criticism. In Cuatro's case, it's adorable -- sooooo much energy in a teensy-tinsy little body! And in DH's case, I think it's admirable; he's such a hard worker, and it's all to benefit our family. So for both of my perpetual motion machines, it's a compliment. :-)

4. I want to take the girls school shopping this weekend, but I'm afraid that Uno and Dos will have growth spurts immediately after I've spent all the bucks on fall clothes. (They've done it before, the meanies!) If I wait for the growth spurts, though, I'll miss some really good sales. I suppose I could just buy stuff that's too big.... Hmmmm.

5. We have no private preschools in this town -- no cozy home places, no church-affiliated preschools, nothing. The town of 2k people we came from had at least three, and this town of 10k has nothing but the underfunded public pre-K (you have to be extra needy or developmentally delayed to get in because they don't have enough teachers for everybody's kids) and daycares. I don't want to put Tres in daycare and pretend it's preschool, so she and I are going to embark on a learning adventure together. Eeeek! At this point I don't think I'm going to go all out with a particular curriculum, but there are a few workbooks I'm eyeing to help her learn all the basics (letters, numbers, shapes, etc). We'll probably set aside a couple hours twice or three times a week and call it school. Anyone who's done this kind of thing before should feel free to leave me some advice in the comments! ;-)

And that's my five for today.


~RCH~

I can do five things

My title may be misleading; I can actually do more than five things. But in considering how much I want to blog (fairly often) and how often I actually do (hardly ever anymore) due to various circumstances (FOUR children, ack!) (which is only a medium size family where I come from, but it's lots to me!) I've decided that I will give up (for now) trying to write long, detailed, eloquent posts about my deep inner feelings. Instead, I will try to post about five things each day through the month of August.

I already missed the first two days, oops. This project, like most I lay my hands on, will have to make do with imperfection.

So! We begin:


1. My sister, BIL and their adorable family spent the last week with us (or from Tuesday evening until Sunday morning, anyway). I miss them already! I did as soon as they drove away, in fact. I mostly know they won't, because other options make much more sense, but I secretly wish they would move into the house directly across the street for me, or the one ~three houses up the block (both of which are for sale and very attractively priced) when BIL is done with pharmacy school.

:: Let us pause for a moment of wistful dreaming ::

Or does anybody else I love want to move into my neighborhood? It's beautiful here, I promise.

2. Uno and Dos have discovered the game of Slug Bug. The only problem? They can't seem to tell the difference between a VW Bug and a PT Cruiser. I think it's hilarious; the two types of cars look nothing alike to me. But maybe their problem is hereditary, and my fault: I'm convinced I have a mild form of face blindness. Maybe my children have car blindness...? LOL.

3. I bought a MomAgenda last year to organize my crazy life. It worked very nicely until Cuatro came, and then (predictably) everything fell apart, organization-wise. I was happy just to make it through the day; never mind penciling in appointments and activities several days or weeks in advance! But now that school is about to start again and my life will return to some semblance of routine and order, I want to try again. Only I don't want to buy somebody else's planner. I'm currently teaching myself Adobe's InDesign program by trying to make my own August to August planner, with spaces for mine and each child's appointments, plus DH's work schedule. I'm a little confused about the data merge (I don't want to have to enter a year's worth of dates manually, UGH) but if I have some quiet time tonight (without children interrupting me every few minutes) I'm sure I'll figure it out.

4. The girls were adorable in their play, A Kidsummer Night's Dream. They were in the chorus line of fairies -- nobody 4th grade or younger was eligible for a bigger part -- but I swear they stole the show. ;-) Here are some pics:










5. Randomly glancing my hand across my bookshelf a few days ago, I found an old book I haven't looked at in years: A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Ahhh, the memories it brought back! Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg and Frank O'Hara, favorite poets of my youth -- they all make me smile. What I'd give to have been a black turtleneck or a pair of cigarette pants ca. 1961, LOL. I'd have been at all the cool poetry readings.

For your reading pleasure, here's one among many of his fabulous pieces:

I Am Waiting

I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier

and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep thru the state of Arizona
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
and I am waiting
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am waiting
to see God on television
piped onto church altars
if only they can find
the right channel
to tune in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes
and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
by an obscure general practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am awaiting retribution
for what America did
to Tom Sawyer
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting
for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder

"I Am Waiting" from A Coney Island of the Mind. Copyright © 1958 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.


~RCH~